Chennai: Agnikul Cosmos has inaugurated two new units at its assembly and testing facility in Chennai to test reusable rocket stages under flight-like conditions and manufacture critical launch vehicle components in-house.The facilities, which include a stage testing and inspection facility, will enable validation of complete reusable rocket stages under flight-like conditions, the company said in a statement. The facility enables full-stage testing with propulsion and avionics integrated, including clusters of semi-cryogenic engines. With this, Agnikul becomes the only Indian private space company with in-house post-flight requalification infrastructure, it said.The facility provides the infrastructure to develop a repeatable build, test, fly, recover, inspect, requalify and fly-again cycle for reusable launch vehicles. It also supports post-flight inspection and requalification of recovered stages.“The vision of bringing reusability to launch requires us to think beyond a single flight and build the capability to test, recover, inspect, and prepare a stage for its next flight. STIF gives us the ability to test complete stages for the duration of their mission and inspect and requalify recovered stages. This is an important capability as we work towards our second mission,” said Srinath Ravichandran, co-founder and CEO of Agnikul Cosmos.
